


An Unfortunate Experiment

by orphan_account



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Blood, Cecil is a test subject, It's not as dark as it sounds, M/M, carlos is like foR SCIENCE, oh jk hot guy science what?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 07:23:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4010947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After five years of the same job, Carlos is ready for a promotion. His wish comes in the form of a promotion to Lead Scientist at the U.S. South-West division of StrexCorp. </p><p>Upon arrival he finds that scientists are getting killed and replaced by the hour, and its all thanks to the volatile test subject they have in custody; Subject 0, otherwise known as Cecil Gershwin Palmer.</p><p>NOTE: THIS IS A FINISHED FIC; THE CHAPTER 3/? TAG IS BROKEN FOR SOME REASON.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Meeting

Carlos had been in the same job for five years.

 

Granted, it didn’t exactly feel like five years. It almost felt like no time at all, like he had just left college last week, but that was more from the lack of consistency. Co-workers seemed to be moving and disappearing and dying left and right; Greg, his supervisor, was the longest colleague he’d had yet. They’d been working in the Boston division together for two months, but then he’d disappeared as well.

 

Still, five years was a long time to stay on one level. Certainly too long for the expectations he’d had at graduation. _Summa cum laude at Harvard,_ the recruiters had all said. _That’s something, isn’t it. Wow..._

 

_Wow,_ Carlos thought. _I’ve finally been promoted._

 

He had almost thrown the letter out; the StrexCorp seal looked like the garden variety spam that Carlos received by the pound. Not exactly something you’d expect from the ‘World’s Leading Company in Everything’, but as his first supervisor had said: “It keeps us inconspicuous”, or some other equally reasonable explanation.

 

Despite the sub-par exterior, the letter itself was actually rather nice. Thick, dappled grey paper with embossed letters. Gold leaf. It made him nervous; StrexCorp was famous for their classy, sometimes violent, and always impersonal firings.

 

**CARLOS,**

 

the letter began.

 

**GOOD JOB, BUDDY**

 

it continued.

 

**YOU’VE BEEN PROMOTED AS A LEAD SCIENTIST UNDER THE LEAD SCIENTIST IN THE WESTERN, SOUTHERN, NOT QUITE TO MEXICO DIVISION.**

the letter said eloquently.

 

**GOOD LUCK**

 

it ended, but then Carlos squinted closer at the paper. On the bottom edge, in minuscule font, it said: _you’ll need it_.

 

_Well then,_ Carlos thought, looking outside. It was snowing again, white dust covering the graying sludge of snow from two days ago. It was always snowing in Boston, cloudy and cold. And loud. Full of people, too many for there to possibly be any real science here.

 

The western, southern, not quite to Mexico part of the U.S. sounded quite lovely. Quiet and hot and dry.

 

Perhaps it would do him some good.

 

 

************************************

 

 

The human mind was fickle, Carlos realized, standing on the outside gates of the so called “Dog Park” he had just exited. He had been standing there for almost an hour, dreaming of sleet covered roads and frosty snow, while sand infiltrated his curls and the desert cooked him alive.

 

The western, southern,

 

He hadn’t put on sun screen, either. His skin naturally had more melanin in it, but he could tell it would start turning crispy soon anyways.

 

A quarter past twelve, instead of The Lead Scientist, a mailman walked up to him and handed him a letter without saying anything.

 

Carlos recognized the dappled, gold leaf StrexCorp paper with apprehension. It read:

 

_Apologies Dr. Carlos,_

 

_The late Dr. Greg Greiges passed yesterday, and will not be able to assist you in the establishment of your position here in the town of Night Vale. You now have a team of: 5 Scientists._

 

**_CONGRATULATIONS,_ **

****

**_YOU HAVE BEEN PROMOTED TO THE LEAD SCIENTIST._ **

_As lead scientist, please refrain from being distracted by minor scientific phenomena such as the floating cats or glowing cloud. Stay focused on the mission._

_Please find below the directions to your outpost._

 

Carlos swallowed after reading the first page. Even for StrexCorp, this number of deaths was ridiculously high. As for the mission, he assumed there would be a briefing portfolio waiting for him like all the other ambiguous StrexCorp mission assignments.

 

Following the directions to what the map said was the Night Vale Community Radio Station, Carlos looked around. The streets were deserted, eerily quiet. A breeze was blowing, but all it did was shift the already boiling air toward him faster.

 

The town looked benign, abandoned and boring. There were no glowing clouds or floating cats, and it seemed almost impossible that anything here could kill the twenty scientists that had been posted here originally.

 

At least, it had been twenty in the files he had received. And yet, when he arrived at the station, the files of various experiments with ‘minor Night Vale phenomena’ were almost all written by different individuals. There must have been over a hundred different names in these documents, all in the span of the past five years. Most had the extension R-p at the end of their titles. It meant that they were replacements, just as he was. Scientists replacing other scientists that had died in the field.

 

_How many had come here before him? How many were left to replace the five people he had?_ Over a hundred different names... it was around the size of StrexCorp’s entire science division.

 

“Hey there,” a voice called out behind him. Carlos jerked and spun around, finding a woman carrying a clip board leaning against the door. He relaxed when he saw the standard white StrexCorp lab coat she was wearing, the title Dr. Lauren R-p pinned neatly to her lapel.

 

Carlos exhaled shakily, putting the files back on the shelf. “Hello,” he said politely. “I’m Dr. Carlos, from the Boston division. I was, er” Carlos held up the letter the mailman had given him. “I was promoted to be the new Lead Scientist?”

 

“I know,” Lauren smiled, widely. She made a mark on her clip board and then craned her neck out the door of the office they were in, calling, “Hey, Kevin! Get the rest of the team, the boss is here!”

 

Carlos swallowed. No one had ever called him boss before. He looked back at the shelf, at the hundreds of other experiment files, but none were the bright yellow color he needed.

 

“I guess you’re in here looking for the mission file?” Lauren asked, unclipping something from her board. It was a bright yellow folder, the words NIGHT VALE printed on it in an oddly purple hue.

 

Carlos took the file, feeling relieved. After he read this, everything would make sense. That’s how all of StrexCorp’s projects went--granted, he’d never seen one with such a... high turn-over rate, but it was for the science. Anything for science, his professors used to say. Science is for the Greater Good.

 

What he assumed were the rest of his inherited team were now waiting outside the office door. The four new scientists introduced themselves as Kevin-Robert-Arielle-Elise, all at once, in varying volumes and tones, followed by an ever cheery, “ and I’m Lauren!”.

 

Carlos was grateful for name tags.

 

“I’m Dr. Carlos.” he replied to them all, trying to sound less timid and more like he knew how to run a team. StrexCorp must have really run out of scientists if he was who they wanted to be the Lead. “It’s very nice to meet you. I, ah...”

 

“You haven’t been briefed yet?” the man named Kevin asked. His eyes slid down to the yellow folder at Carlos’s side. “Well, we should leave you alone then, to read up. Nice having a boss around again!”

 

He smiled, somehow wider than Lauren did, and left with the rest of the group. His voice was also similarly cheery, so much so that his words seemed absolutely sincere, even though Carlos couldn’t imagine any person being glad to have their boss back.

 

An odd team, he thought, but they must all be qualified. You didn’t get into StrexCorp unless you were qualified. And that’s all he needed, a competent and proactive team.

 

 

Carlos settled into the chair behind his desk, making sure the door was closed before putting his feet up and resting the file on his bent legs. His favorite reading position. Too bad it had been deemed “improper” and “not scientist material” by his many colleagues over the years.

 

On the first page of the stack of papers in the file was a picture of a man, or at least a humanoid. Carlos had never seen anything like him in his life.

 

Granted, the person this team had labeled Subject 0 wasn’t the oddest thing he had ever seen. From a distance, he might have just seemed like an eccentrically tattooed individual. From a distance. Carlos was pretty sure once you got within speaking distance you might notice the third eye on his forehead, like his parents had been a Cyclops and a human and he had gotten the best of both worlds.

 

In the picture he was smiling from a radio booth-probably the one inside this radio station-, wearing a pair of headphones, his tie the same vivid purple as his tattoos and his three eyes, his vest as and button-up sharp and neat. His hair seemed so blonde it was almost white, wavy like the desert winds had leeched the color from it.

 

Carlos couldn’t help thinking that he was maybe an okay looking guy. Scientifically speaking, of course. In his scientific mind, Carlos was pretty sure this Subject 0 guy was really, really attractive. From a scientific point of view.

 

He really shouldn’t have thought those thoughts. It was like that time he thought that those mice coming into the lab were cute, and then met them in person the next day. They were not cute.

 

Under the whole Subject 0 title and picture, someone had scrawled

_Name: Unknown_

_Species: Claimed human, humanoid being_

_Occupation: community radio host_

_Location: Cell B-3, Radio Station Studio_

_Subject Class: Top Priority_

_Danger: Extreme_

_Objective: Extract knowledge of time manipulation; subject has been alive for nearly two centuries. If there is a failure to procure verbal information, proceed with experimentation._

 

Carlos looked back at the photo of Subject 0, who was smiling benignly up at him, and had a hard time applying the danger level extreme to him. Carlos had never seen an extreme in his life, and the Boston lab had had free-range small-pox carrier chimps.

 

A few pages later, there was another photo. It was almost like looking at another man entirely.

 

Detail-wise, nothing much had changed. He was still wearing the same outfit, purple tie, vest and button-up; he was still in the radio station booth. But the desk he had been sitting on in the first picture had been removed, a scattering of pencils and fax papers on the floor as if they had thrown it out of the room in a hurry. Subject 0 himself was now slouching against the wall of the booth, staring at the photographer through the glass with dull eyes. Blood streaked his off-white hair, blossomed on the white fabric of his shirt. The purple tattoos on his arms almost seemed to glow. His teeth were clenched, looking sharp as razors.

 

The notes said:

 

~ Detained subject; time has not changed.

~ Uncooperative to questioning, resistant to methods 1-5. ref: persuasion handbook.

~ Has injured twelve of my team, two deaths: Dr. Ben Stetzler and Cora Smith.

~ Recommendations:

\- Do not approach directly.

\- Stay OUT of the booth.

\- Avoid eye contact with third eye.

\- Do not feed subject.

\- Should I be replaced, please implement methods 6-10 in the persuasion handbook.

\- Dr. Hedwin Rogers

 

The next page’s hand writing was different; print rather than cursive. It was signed by Dr. Carla Dansen, and detailed the implementing of method 1.

 

Hedwin Rogers probably hadn’t stuck around for long.

 

The remaining pages were methodical reports on the subsequent methods 6-9, Lead Scientist, Greg Greiges passing away before the tenth could be put into play.

 

It took Carlos five pages of reading to realize that the persuasion handbook was a manual of creative torture techniques. It took him ten pages to learn to avoid looking at the picture that showed up every now and then of Subject 0, looking progressively closer to death each time. Something in Carlos’s chest squeezed at the thought of this, at the thought of Subject 0’s slow, drawn out death, and yet it was a minuscule feeling compared to the need to do his job, his life’s work, to fulfill the great destiny of Science.

 

Having finished the briefing folder, Carlos turned to the shelf, quickly finding the Persuasion Handbook lodged between more files and a dictionary for biology. It was a small volume; fitting in the palm of his hand, bound in green dyed leather. He turned to method 10.

 

The more he read the less well he felt; by the time he closed the book he had developed a persistent migraine. It was becoming clearer now, why he had been sent here. If his theory was right, and they almost always were, his Lead Scientist title was little more than an excuse to summon Carlos to Night Vale.

 

Method 10 was called _Facilitated Stockholm Syndrome_. It detailed the planting of a ‘friend’ within the team, an outsider, benign and new, who would treat the deprived subject with kindness. Build a friendship, forge a bond. And then break it, to watch the subject shatter. It was a classic give hope, take hope scenario.

 

Part of Carlos was queasy over the idea, and the rest of him was glad to have a defined purpose. He stowed the queasiness away; it made him a bad scientist. Besides, Carlos reasoned with himself. Subject 0 has killed how many scientists now? Dozens? Over a hundred? Nobody like that should be given a break, especially when it would stop Science.

 

Anything for the data, was the motto. If Carlos died in that booth, it would have been for a good cause. And if Subject 0 died, well, he was just a mouse in a cage, invaluable and yet disposable. A bloody, rabid mouse.

 

 

************************************

 

 

Kevin and Lauren, who were probably the defacto leaders of the group, checked in with him soon after he had mulled over Method 10 for the fifth time.

 

“Hey, boss.” Lauren said, the office door swinging open. Kevin was right behind her, grinning. Carlos couldn’t imagine him making an angry face; somehow, this was unsettling.

 

“Hello Lauren, Keven.” Carlos replied, trying to make his smile seem genuine. He wondered how they did it. “I’ve, ah, finished reading over the briefing file.”

 

The two looked at each other.

 

“Well!” Kevin exclaimed, clapping his hands together like they were about to embark on a fun adventure. “Then I suppose you’ve figured out the, ah-”

 

“Method 10.” Carlos cut in, holding up the handbook. He didn’t want to draw it out. “I’ll do it.”

 

They stared.

 

Lauren interrupted the silence with a belated “That’s great!”, clapping her hands together like Kevin had just moments ago.

 

“Yeah,” said Kevin. His preexisting smile somehow widened. “You want to get started now?”

 

Carlos blinked at him for a few moments. How did you start something like this? Was there a step one? Did the handbook have instructions?

 

“Sure?” Carlos replied. It wasn’t as if he’d know how to start himself. “What should I do?”

 

“Hmm.” Lauren stopped to think for a moment. “Why don’t you bring him food? We haven’t fed him at all since we got here, and there’s no record of any of our predecessors doing it; he must be a little hungry.”

 

“Just a little,” Carlos mumbled, waving it off as the two other scientists looked at him oddly.

 

“Anyway,” Kevin said, continuing Lauren’s thought. “Just do things like that, nice things or at least not bad things, so it makes you look different from the rest of us. He’ll be extremely hostile at first, but I mean,” Kevin shrugged. “it should work.”

 

“Right.” Carlos said. “Thanks. Where’s the food?”

 

Lauren replied. “Main lobby is where we set up a little kitchen. Just don’t bring him anything with ‘wheat or wheat by-products’ in it; for some reason the whole town freaks if you so much as suggest that they eat it.”

 

Carlos nodded, filing away that fact into the already overflowing box of Night Vale oddities he kept in his mind.

 

“Well,” Kevin said. “We should be going. Lots of science things to do. Method 10! This is going to work, I can feel it.”

 

“What will the rest of you guys be doing for Method 10?” Carlos asked. The handbook hadn’t mentioned anything that required the work of more than one person befriending the subject.

 

Kevin and Lauren looked at each other again, this time in slight exasperation. Carlos might have thought them to be siblings, if not for their completely different appearances.

 

“We’ll be preparing old method,” Kevin said, the obviously at the end apparent in his tone. “How are any of the good things you’ll do going to stick if he doesn’t have bad things to contrast it with?”

 

Carlos swallowed. It was going to be one of those projects then, one where he suppressed feelings. His first StrexCorp had pointed it out to him, and it was true; Carlos was too emotional. It would make him a bad scientist if he couldn’t control it.

 

He made himself smile like the rest of the team did, until his face couldn’t seem to stretch anymore. “Oh, silly me,” he said, making his tone happy. “Well, let’s get to work.”

 

The two scientists at the door nodded cheerily and left. Down the hall Carlos heard the faint voice of Kevin say, “Dibs on method 5!” followed by splashes and the sound of sizzling. Carlos looked at the map and headed to the lobby on the other side of the building, starting into a run when he began to hear the moans and occasional screams.

 

_Science, Carlos. Nothing more, nothing less._

 

************************************

 

 

He really shouldn’t have, but Carlos put effort into the breakfast he was preparing. At least, it must have been breakfast. It was morning, right?

 

The ‘small kitchen’ Kevin had told him about didn’t seem terribly small. It was around three times the size of his little cubicle kitchen back in Boston, and stocked.

 

Carlos made scrambled eggs and toast with jam and poured a glass of orange juice, loading it all onto a tray and carrying it back down the hall.

 

Thankfully, the screaming had stopped. In fact, everything seemed to have stopped; none of the scientists were anywhere near the radio station booth where Subject 0 was kept.

 

The door that was labeled as the booth was heavy and wooden, with the note ‘ **KEEP OUT: THIS DOOR IS LOCKED** ’ pinned on it. The door was not locked.

 

Inside, a switchboard was mounted against the glass case that separated the producer from the host. The sliding glass door that allowed the host to enter and exit was cracked open slightly, and Carlos felt his heart spike. Had the subject escaped? Had he killed everyone in the station?

 

Moving forward, Carlos exhaled. Subject 0 was still inside the booth, kept inside by oddly golden colored shackles attached the the walls and encircling his wrists. They were bloody. His clothes were bloody, his hair. His face was streaked in a way that made it seem like he had been crying red.

 

Not that blood was a rarity in the recording booth. It seemed as if almost every surface was splattered with it, and Carlos knew that it wasn’t all Subject 0’s.

 

At the moment, he seemed to be asleep, or unconscious.

 

It made Carlos let his guard down a bit. He entered the booth and got within five feet of the Subject.

 

The last thing he saw was glowing, a bright, purple glow. Something seemed to shoot out of Subject 0’s arms, tentacles identical to his tattoos. Carlos felt them encircle his waist, catch his wrists. He saw the purple light. And then he saw dark.

 

 

************************************

 

 

“What was that?”

 

A loud sound made Kevin put down the wire he had been twisting. Method 3 had been so difficult to execute; they should have just kept the wire from the last time.

 

Lauren looked out the door and sighed. She could see flashing purple lights from within the glass walls of the studio.

 

“Newbie’s gone.” she announced, and all the scientists in the lounge groaned. “Oh cheer up guys, what did you expect?”

 

 

 

************************************

 

 

When Carlos awoke, there was no light coming in from the window. There was no light on the ceiling, and yet something allowed him to see both of these details.

 

It was familiar. A purplish glow, coming from... his arm?

 

No. Someone else’s arm, next to his. He was leaning against a wall, on his side. He looked forward and was eye to eye with Subject 0. Or, eye to eyes. Subject 0’s entire body seemed to glow that eerie shade of purple; his eyes were so bright they almost seemed to be looking through Carlos rather than at him.

 

He swallowed hard, his heart beginning to accelerate into overdrive.

 

“Calm down,” Subject 0 said, and the voice made Carlos blink. It was a deep voice, smooth and calming. It was the kind of voice projecting instructions to a panicking crowd; smooth and in control. It was the kind of voice you had on a radio station.

 

_At least, on my kind of radio station,_ Carlos thought, and then wondered what was wrong with his head.

 

Subject 0’s eyebrows furrowed, as pale-blonde-white as his hair. “You aren’t calming down.” he said, and he sounded slightly impatient. “Please calm down.”

 

Carlos was pretty sure it at this point it was pass out or die from a heart attack, but something about that voice... it made him want to listen. He stared into those glowing, purple eyes and found himself almost hypnotized.

 

Suddenly the third eye, on his forehead, snapped shut, while Subject 0 said, “No, no, don’t calm down that much, dammit, don’t look into that eye like that..”

 

Carlos lost the rest of his words. He was feeling sleepy. He wanted to bask in the warm purple glow forever...

 

There were fingers snapping in front of his face. Loudly. Carlos could barely snap; he was kind of jealous.

 

“I’m up!” he shouted, blinking rapidly. Then he blinked some more, and then he cursed silently in his head, because Subject 0 was staring back at him with two eyes now, the third cautiously blinking at him, and how had he forgotten where he was...?

 

“Be quiet,” Subject 0 hissed, and lifted is arm as if to shush Carlos physically with his hand. He was stopped by the shackle attached to his wrist, gritting his teeth as the metal cut into his wrists even more.

 

Carlos stared at the shackled wrist, trying to gather the pieces of his scattered mind. He could feel the wave of panic coming, on the horizon, slowly traveling towards him. He was in the radio booth. There was an empty plate near his shoe. Half a glass of orange juice. There was a psychotic StrexCorp Subject sitting across him, strapped to the wall. And he was... not dead?

 

“I’m alive.” Carlos said in wonderment (Well, he whispered. He was great at listening to instructions).

 

Subject 0 looked at him. “Well, you’re no use to me dead, now are you?” he said.

 

“Use-?” Carlos managed, before many things started happening at once.

 

The door to the studio was kicked open, Kevin storming in with what looked like a flame thrower, except when he pulled the trigger it spewed a questionably orange looking liquid which subsequently dissolved as hole in the radio booth’s glass.

 

He was wearing something like a welder’s mask, screaming, “Now look, you leAVE YOUR FISH ARMS OUT OF THIS, I JUST WANT THE NEW GUY’S BODY,” as he advanced.

 

As this was happening, Carlos was getting a sense of dejavu as tentacles, purple and glowing, once again encircled his waist, except this time they lifted him until he was in front of Subject 0’s body, like a sitting human shield. He could hear Subject 0’s voice in his ear as Carlos began to hyperventilate, murmuring, “Sorry, every man for himself, right?” to Carlos and then yelling, much louder, to Kevin. “I WILL NEVER YIELD. HERE’S YOUR INTERN. LET ME GO AND HE LEAVES HERE WITH MOST OF HIS LIMBS.” A pause. “AND THEY’RE TENTACLES, YOU UNEDUCATED LIBRARIAN.”

 

The tentacles snaked up his chest until they encircled his neck, squeezing like a boa constrictor.

 

Carlos tried to breathe, which hadn’t been easy to begin with, and the grappled to loosen the choke hold. It was like trying to bend an iron bar around his neck, an oddly velvety, glowing bar.

 

_Thanks a lot,_ he tried to say. _I even made you my favorite breakfast._

 

There were spots in his vision, orange splashes mixing with the ever present purple.

 

Maybe it was the asphyxia, but Carlos didn’t feel that bad. Well, no, he did feel bad. But this feeling-of-badness was spread on several corners; to himself, to all those dead scientists before him. And to Subject 0. Carlos remembered the splashes and screams from earlier, and didn’t have a hard time understanding what had happened. He’d skimmed the Persuasion Handbook enough to know that acid didn’t come close to the worst of it.

 

_You don’t have to think about Science when you’re dying, right?_ Carlos thought. _I can feel bad for this guy now. No mission. Just Carlos._

 

And Carlos, Carlos realized, felt bad for Subject 0. He felt terrible.

 

And then he felt nothing.

 

 

 

 


	2. Stitches

Carlos awoke feeling like he'd been punched a few times in the stomach, and then the neck. 

He blinked open his eyes, finding himself staring up at a nondescript grey ceiling, the type that was all over the radio station. His head was cushioned on something that didn't seem like a pillow; there was something on his neck that didn't feel like a pillow either.

Carlos blinked again, and saw someone, Subject 0, looking down at him with something that might have been concern.

"Oh, good." Subject 0 said. "You're awake."

He prodded Carlos's neck with his fingers again, gentle and cold. Carlos couldn't help but wince when he pressed to hard. 

"Sorry," Subject 0 removed his hand, looking sheepish. "Also, er, sorry for ah, you know..."

"Yeah," Carlos said, or at least tried to say. He cleared his throat and thought of water. "It's alright."

Subject 0 bit his lip. Carlos needed to stop thinking about Subject 0's lips; the guy had almost killed him.. how long ago? There was light coming in from the window...

"You've been unconscious for around half a day," Subject 0 told him, now also a mind-reader. "Good afternoon, Mr. uh—"

"Carlos." He sat up, slightly embarrassed for having lain on his lap for half a day. "Just Carlos." He took a moment; the room had momentarily darkened for a second there. "And you are?"

"Subject 0," Subject 0 replied, and it took Carlos moment to realize he was joking. "Cecil Gershwin Palmer, Night Vale Community Radio Host. It's nice to meet you, Carlos."

He extended his right hand as far as the shackles would allow. Carlos went to shake it, and instead found himself inspected Cecil Gershwin Palmer's wrist, the red gash where the metal had cut deep and bloody.

Carlos slid back the metal cuff as far down as it would go, freeing up the wound. "We should get this disinfected," Carlos said. He looked up from Cecil's wrist and found the other man staring at him with a strange expression.

"This?" Cecil said, turning his wrist as if to inspect it himself. "It's fine. I'm fine. I mean..." he trailed off, looking down at his abdomen. Carlos followed his eyes and felt himself pale.

There was a large gash running from Cecil's abdomen up to his mid chest, tearing through his vest and button. His clothes were almost completely saturated with blood, dried and dark, but when Carlos unbuttoned down to where the cut began, it was still bright red and bleeding.

He wondered how Cecil hadn't bled to death yet, and decided not to ask. Instead he said, "This needs stitches."

"Stitches?" Cecil asked. "I don't think we have any here." 

"I have some in my bag," Carlos stood up to go back to his room and get them. He got halfway to the glass door when something caught him by the foot, a glowing purple tentacle that seemed to have peeled itself off its tattooed twin on Cecil's arm.

Cecil looked up at him, a flash of something dark crossing his face. "Where are you going?"

"To get my first aid kit," Carlos said, wary of any more tentacles coming to join its friend. 

"For the stitches," Cecil stated. He stared at Carlos and his face looked almost sad. "Right, sorry."

The tentacle relinquished its grasp on his leg, and Carlos walked out, maybe a tad bit quicker than normal.

He made it three steps out of the wooden doors before Kevin and Lauren ambushed him with something akin to a dual fly tackle. 

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" They screamed in unison, before dragging him into a room where all the rest of the scientists were. Carlos escaped from the hug and stepped back, only to have five pairs of eyes track his every move.

" _So,"_ Kevin spoke up first. "How did it go?"

"Um, great!" Carlos said, hoping his enthusiasm sounded real. "He didn't kill me, so, progress. I'm actually going to go uh, get back to work, so—"

"You heard the man," Lauren called out, addressing the rest of the team. "Everyone, back to methods prep. Carlos, do your thing."

"Right," Carlos said. He headed back to his room and got to supplies as quickly as he could, and then went back to the booth. Inside the lounge he could hear all the scientists laughing. It sounded like they were playing Monopoly.

 

The second Carlos walked through the glass door, Cecil's head shot up, the expression on his face a mixture of surprise and hope.

"Carlos?" he sounded slightly amazed. 

"Back with the kit," Carlos held up the box he was carrying. He realized that Cecil probably hadn't expected him to come back, or at least, come back friendly. "Ready to do this?"

Cecil looked at him, questioning, as Carlos knelt in front of him and began unpacking the of the kit. Thread, bandages, disinfectant—"Damn," Carlos muttered.

"What is it?" Cecil asked. He sounded nervous now, eyeing the needle that Carlos had just threaded. 

"I'm low on novocaine." Carlos said as he disinfected the needle. "Relax. It will hurt less if you do. And I have enough novocaine left for this, at least." He unbuttoned Cecil's vest and shirt and tried to ignore the off task part of his mind, laying a hand next to the wound to steady him. "Ready?"

He looked up to give Cecil a reassuring smile, but met dark, almost stormy looking eyes. "No," Cecil said, and his voice sounded more menacing than he'd ever heard it before, angry and scared. He eyed the needle in Carlos's hand. "This is another one of those—of those methods, isn't it?" Cecil's voice shook. "You're going to sew me up like some curtains, and it's going to _hurt so much,_ and I keep telling you people, I _don't know—_ "

"I'm _not trying to hurt you."_ Carlos said, but Cecil was now panicking, shrinking away from his hand and sending out the tattoos on his arms, iron strength tentacles wrapping around Carlos's wrists. "Cecil, please, you'll bleed out without stitches."

"I don't believe you," Cecil growled, and tightened his grip on Carlos's right wrist until he dropped the needle. "I don't believe any of you lab coat wearing _fiends."_

"Cecil—" The grip tightened. Blood from the wound began to drip onto the carpeted floors. "Cecil, _please,"_ Carlos pleaded. "I'll prove it to you, I'll show you, just please let me go." 

Cecil loosened his grip, enough for Carlos to pull free. "Have you ever sewn anything?" he asked Cecil, who seemed surprised by the question.

 _"What?"_ Cecil asked.

"Have you ever sewn anything up before in your life, curtains, a quilt, a stuffed animal—"

"Teddy bear," Cecil said quickly. His anger seemed to have taken a back seat to confusion. "For my niece Janice. I'm quite good at it."

Carlos sighed. "Good," he said. He was really quite bad at stitching himself up. He turned around and reached to grab one of the many glass shards that had come from the partially shattered, partially dissolved glass wall.

"What are you—" Carlos made a quick slice along the bottom of his forearm and wrist. _"Carlos!"_ Cecil exclaimed, sounding slightly outraged. "Carlos, what are you _doing?"_

Carlos crawled back over to Cecil and handed him the needle and thread, making sure to be in range of where his shackles extended. 

"Just like a teddy bear," Carlos said, trying not to wince as he held out his newly injured arm. "Now what I just cut includes the radial artery, and I will bleed out in maybe an hour at best since the cut is vertical unless I get _stitches."_

Cecil didn't move to stitch his arm. He just sat there, staring at Carlos's arm, watching the blood drip into the carpet and mingle with his own. 

"Cecil," Carlos said, trying not to sound strained. He didn't feel all that great. "Cecil, I kind of need you to do this."

"That's a lot of blood." Cecil murmured. Carlos briefly wondered whether Cecil had ever taken a look around at the rest of the room, which was similarly gory. 

Finally, Cecil seems to snap out of whatever place he had gone to. He stabilized Carlos's arm on his leg and methodically sewed as he would a teddy bear's stomach, as Carlos looked away and tried not to make noise. 

It was quiet except for Carlos's occasional sharp intakes of breath for a few moments, until Cecil broke the silence with a half angry, "Carlos, I still don't understand _why you did this."_ He accidentally punctuated his sentence with a slightly harder tug of the needle, making Carlos's breathing stutter. "Sorry," Cecil apologized. Then he was angry again. "but seriously, I don't know what you were thinking—"

"I was thinking that I had to make you believe in stitches." Carlos cut in, watching Cecil tie off the thread. "Do you believe in stitches now?"

"Yes, Carlos." Cecil replied, sounding sullen and slightly guilty. "Do the stitches."

"Not yet," Carlos said, reaching into the kit again. He pulled out a small bottle of alcohol. 

"You're going to _drink?"_ Cecil asked.

"This is to clean the cut," Carlos explained. He wondered what kind of science department Night Vale schools had. "Just pour it on. Wait." Carlos braced himself in the way that he usually braced for things, by curling into a ball, which the exception of his extended arm. "Hold my arm so I can't pull away. Okay now pour."

Carlos tried his best to muffle himself; he didn't need the other scientists to hear him, and he certainly didn't want to scare Cecil any more than he already was. Apparently he did a bad job of it, because Cecil all but dropped his arm after he was done and instead started asking him if he was okay in increasingly panicked tones. 

It would have been endearing, if Carlos's arm wasn't burning.

"I'm fine," he managed, sitting up and plastering a smile on his face. Cecil looked scared. "Don't worry," Carlos said, as he wrapped up his arm. Finished with that, he fished around the first aid kit until he found the novocaine syringe, holding it up for Cecil to see. "This is the novocaine, I talked about earlier." Carlos started preparing it. "It numbs areas of your body, so you won't feel any pain."

"No pain." Cecil repeated, sounding amazed. "Not even when you pour the..."

"Nope," Carlos said, happy to assuage some of his fears. "Just a pinch in the beginning," he gave Cecil the shot quickly. "And now you're fine."

Cecil nodded, as if to confirm what he had just said. He leaned back as Carlos began the stitches, watching his hands work so intently that Carlos felt almost self conscious about it.

He finished the stitches and disinfected the wound, about to sit back after bandaging it before Cecil caught his left hand, holding him there as he turned Carlos's arm until he could see the stitches he'd done.

"I did a terrible job," Cecil said, looking unhappy. "You should have used that numbing thing, the novotame."

Carlos laughed, letting his arm drop after Cecil was finished with his inspection. "It's _novocaine_ and if I'd used it, then you wouldn't have been able to."

"I would have been _fine."_ Cecil huffed, buttoning back up his shirt and vest. "My pain tolerance is very high."

Carlos grimaced as he packed up the first aid kit, knowing why Cecil even knew his pain tolerance to begin with. 

_Science,_ a part of his mind whispered. _You're alive still, Carlos, and science is your god._

"Carlos, Caaarlos?" Cecil snapped him back from his reverie, shaking his hand in front of his face. 

"Sorry, what?" Carlos asked, his eyes following the hand that had just been in front of him. "I should bandage your wrists too; they're pretty torn up."

"No." Cecil replied, dead serious. "And it's not because I don't believe in stitches, or bandages, but you can't. They'll see them."

"They'll—?" Carlos caught himself. The other scientists. "Oh, right."

"I don't want to know what they'd do to you." Cecil said, shuddering. "Where do they think you are right now?"

"Resting in my room." Carlos said, the lie coming to him far too easily. "But it's alright, they're all in the lounge. They don't know I'm here."

Cecil sagged a bit against the wall. "That's good." he said faintly. "I'm glad." 

Carlos nodded awkwardly, not sure how to answer that. Silence prevailed for a few moments, until it was broken by a crash from outside followed by a loud _"Ha! Go to jail!"_.

"You should go." Cecil said. He looked sad and afraid. "Before they check on you."

Carlos nodded, because it seemed like the easiest thing to do. Even as he walked away he was still conflicted, confused; by his unwillingness to leave, by his responsibility and his emotions. He was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he almost didn't hear the quiet, _"Hey, Carlos?"_ Cecil asked as he reached the door.

"Yeah?" Carlos replied, a hand on the door.

Cecil fidgeted with his lapels for a moment, not looking up to his eyes. "Do you—Do you know what they're going to try next?" he asked. "Just so I can prepare. It's just that they've been recycling old things when it used to be new every week, and I just..."

"I'm sorry, Cecil." Carlos replied, and his voice sounded flat and meaningless. "I have no idea."


	3. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's the end! Thank you guys for your lovely comments and kudos; it means a lot to me!!

Carlos had read articles about Extended Involuntary Human Responses back in college. They always seemed pretty far-fetched to him; how did a person not think about what they were doing, for minutes, for hours at a time?

_How,_ Carlos wondered, head foggy and eyesight spotted, _does a person decide to defy their psychotic colleagues, and not even in the name of Science?_

He was lying on the floor of the broadcast studio. By this point, it's blood stained carpet were more familiar to his head than his bed's pillow.

His bed's pillow... It seemed as if that was where he had been only moments ago. It was, at least, the last place he had been sane.

Kevin stood above him, his mouth twisted in a way that Carlos could only describe as _happily disapproving._ Cecil was sitting only a foot from where his head lay, covered in a mess of wires that still sparked with electricity.

"Carlos," Kevin chided, sighing as he grabbed said scientist's collar and started dragging him out of the room. "I do _hate_ when people ruin my fun."

In his other hand Kevin carried what looked like an obsidian cattle prod. Carlos probably should have taken note of it, before bursting onto the scene like he was some kind of _hero._

Cecil was saying something as Carlos was dragged past the threshold; it might have been his name, but Carlos's brain was still scrambling. He closed his eyes and only opened them when he felt Kevin drop his collar.

Carlos found himself blinking up at eyes as obsidian as the device that had put him on the floor. Kevin looked even odder when he wasn't wearing his split faced smile.

He was tapping the rod to the floor next to Carlos's head in a way that was threatening and mildly jazzy.

"Carlos," he said, admonishing. "Do you have a history with interrupting experiments?"

Carlos blinked. He swallowed his initial answer of _Is this what you call an experiment?_ and instead swept his brain for a plan.

He said the first thing he could think of. "I was just doing my job." Carlos tried to look less scared and more annoyed. "Don't you think I'll _really_ get him to trust me if I tried to save him, at least once?"

Kevin raised his eyebrows, silent for a long time. Then his face split in a painful looking expression, and Carlos almost sighed in relief.

"That's genius!" Kevin exclaimed, then lowered his voice. "Smart thinking, just next time, tell us about it, alright?"

Carlos nodded, grateful for the movement returning to his limbs. "Just wanted it to seem authentic."

“Of course,” Kevin’s expression turned contemplating. “Let’s make it convincing, shall we?”

Carlos didn’t have time to reply. His vision turned dark and his body jolted with the shock; he knew the screams Cecil could hear were as genuine as they got.

 

Carlos was becoming weary of getting knocked out. It brought on terrible headaches, confusion, and holes in time as he knew it, chunks of his existence that he hadn’t planned to check out of.

It was eerily silent when his eyes blinked open; no screaming, no crackle of electricity, and no laughter from the lounge room. It was also dark. Night time.

He’d lost track of the days, Carlos realized. He kept time by whether or not the sun was shining, by how long people told him he’d been out for.

The window in Cecil’s studio showed a bright night, everything dusted with light from a full moon. It flowed into the room, accenting the angles on Cecil’s face. His eyes were wide and glowing in the semi-darkness, and when his tattoos came to life Carlos let himself be dragged by the tentacles.

They deposited him almost in Cecil’s lap, where Cecil’s arms took over and grabbed him by the shoulders in a panicked motion, his eyes scanning Carlos’s face like the scientist was some kind of apparition.

“Carlos?” Cecil breathed, shaking him a little. His voice was weak and breaking. With a jolt, Carlos realized he had been crying.

He let himself be drawn into a sort of hug; the angle was odd and he was sitting sideways, but Cecil still managed it.

“Cecil, are you alright?” Carlos felt stupid the moment he’d asked the question; was Cecil _okay?._ He probably hadn’t been okay for weeks, maybe months. He’d just been tortured, hadn’t he? “I meant, Cecil why were you crying.”

Cecil swallowed and whispered into Carlos’s curls, his arms tightening around the scientist as he spoke. “The tall one… the one who likes to smile. He took you out and I, I heard you-you were s-screaming, and then he came in and told one of the other people to go collect you and I _saw_ you Carlos, you weren’t _moving_ and I thoughtー”

“I’m not dead.” Carlos cut in, letting his head drop onto Cecil’s shuddering shoulder. “I’m fine, see Cecil? And lookー” He leaned back and held the paperclip up to the light for Cecil to see. The struggle he’d felt the other day seemed so simple; his heart was resolved. He didn’t need to believe in Science anymore; all he needed was Cecil to be safe. “I’m getting you out of here.”

 

The cuffs clicked open, first his right arm, and then his left, and Cecil stood like the carpet was on fire.

“Are you feeling okay?” Carlos asked, looking at his legs nervously. They were nice legs. Not the problem right now. “Can you walk?”

“I can walk.”

Carlos exhaled. “Good.” A pause. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Carlos found himself moving without his own volition, drawing Cecil into a proper hug. He held on for a bit longer than was normal, and then forced himself to let go. He wanted more than anything to be with the man in front of him; he wanted to hear him on the radio with that ridiculous voice, wanted to know what he really wanted for breakfast or what his hobbies were. But that was ridiculous; a fantasy for another lifetime, perhaps. He’d have to settle with knowing that Cecil was free and alive. It was good enough.

“Carlos?” Cecil’s voice was uncharacteristically timid. It didn’t suit him. “You look sad.”

“I’m sad.” he admitted, and then tried for a smile. “You need to leave. Right now, before the rest of them wake up.”

Cecil nodded, glancing at the open door of the studio. “That sounds wonderful.” he replied slowly, looking at Carlos in confusion and then realization. “You’re not coming.”

“I’ll keep them from the studio as long as I can.” Carlos promised, already thinking of ways to stave off the scientists. “It’ll give you a headstart of perhaps a day.”

Cecil’s normal eyes blinked at him; his third eye stared, glowing and wide.

And then Carlos was being swept up into Cecil’s arms like a bride, albeit a bride supported mainly by tentacles, one specifically twined around his head to keep him quiet. His protests were muffled.

“I’m sorry, Carlos.” Cecil whispered as he walked. “But I’m not letting you do something stupid and brave for me. I know that they’llー” Cecil stopped walking, his eyes pinned to something ahead of the in the lobby. Carlos only had a moment to recognize the fear in his face before he was dropped carefully on the floor, Cecil stepping over him in a furl of glowing purple limbs.

Carlos rolled into a sitting position just in time to see Lauren fire off three shots in Cecil’s direction, all puncturing tentacles that only seemed to pulse brighter after being hit. Cecil stepped closer to grab her with one of them and in a desperate move she backed into the far wall of the lobby, changing sights to Carlos, who was panicking and useless on the floor.

The bullets coming toward him were absorbed once again by the projections of Cecil’s tattoos; the tentacles shot out and curled around her wrist, tight enough for the handgun to drop, and soon she was hovering a foot above the ground, Cecil contemplating her with eyes glowing bright enough to block out any suggestion of a pupil.

Despite her defeated position, Lauren laughed. “Protecting your boyfriend, are we?” she crooned, her gaze fixed on Carlos. “Didn’t you ever wonder what method came next? Why we stopped at nine and doubled back?”

Cecil’s mask of fury and power flickered for a moment, confusion dimming the glow in his eyes. “What are you talking about?”

 

“Oh, _Carlos._ ” she giggled. “He was perfect for it, you know? Still an innocent. You trusted him so easily, and he seemed so genuine; I was looking forward to seeing your face when he betrayed you, but thisー” Cecil’s face was slowly morphing, from confusion to pain to fury. “This will do just fine.”

“Betray me?” Cecil’s voice was carefully controlled; a dam over the fury in his eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

Lauren seemed drunkenly happy; perhaps it was the fear, expressing itself on a smiling face. “There’s nothing worse than having hope, and then losing it.” she sang. “Are you proud of yourself, Carlos? You’veー”

A snap. One of Cecil’s tentacles broke her neck so quickly Carlos barely saw it happen. Her body dropped to ground like a limp marionette, her face frozen in a grin.

Cecil rounded on him, and the expression from before was back, glowing eyes and writhing projections, fury so potent it seeped into the air. And it was all for him. The force of some much anger focused on him made Carlos’s heart run like a jackrabbit’s, made him shrink into the wall he sat against.

“Carlos,” Cecil said, and his voice was again in that controlled calm, the kind promising to break at the brush of a feather. “Is what she said true?” His voice lowered, turning into something deadly. “Are you method ten?”

Carlos found himself having trouble breathing, let alone speaking. “Iー” he swallowed, temporarily stunned as a tentacle dragged him from the wall into the air, just as Lauren had been. “Iーyes, but no, at first I wasー” Cecil had stopped listening.

The grip on his torso had tightened to the point where he knew his ribs were bruising, perhaps cracking. A projection slithered around his neck, squeezing, and he felt the strange familiarity of the moment, except fear was replaced by a rather heaping pile of guilt, of regret, and an overwhelming need for this to just be _over_ , for Cecil to drop his dead body and _run_. Despite his outward invincibility, Cecil was hurt. The bullets wounds he had blocked reappeared on his arms, and one had caught him in the shoulder. Carlos stared at the blood as the air turned stale in his lungs; it was too painful to look at Cecil’s face. It was a dull feeling, knowing he deserved to die, and fearing it anyways.

He was saved, ironically, by the sound of the scientists waking up and running down the hall. Cecil dropped himーaliveーand in a whirl of fading projections was gone from the station, the door swinging shut just as Kevin rounded the corner, finding Carlos sitting on the floor with absolutely no plan in his mind.

“Carlos!” Kevin exclaimed, his excitement sounding more sinister than usual. “Just the man I was looking for. And lookー” He held up the bent paper clip Carlos had left in the studio, next to the open cuffs. “I found something of yours.”

 

They secured Carlos in the studio just as they had Cecil, half because of the “poetic beauty of it all”, as Kevin had put it, and half because the scientists were too lazy to make another detainment center. Carlos went slowly insane waiting for something to happen; were they going to torture him, for fun? Were they going to kill him, send the letter of termination to his parents?

It was almost an entire day before anyone even entered the studio; Kevin and another scientistーElise?ーstrolled in and barely looked at Carlos, switching on the equipment for the broadcasting studio that had miraculously survived all the acid, all the electrocution. It was fully functional, if a bit bloody.

Elise came to stand by Carlos silently, and he recognized the black object in her hand, thin and sleek.

“This is when the evening radio comes on in this town,” Kevin told him, still focused on flipping switches. “You’re friend was the host, if you didn’t know that. I hope he’s listening.”

Carlos watched in silence and mounting dread as Kevin put on the headphones and tapped at the microphone. He pressed the broadcast button and began his announcement, voice as positive as ever.

“Hello, community of Night Vale. This is a personal message to your radio host; we know him as Subject 0. If you see him, please give him this message? Thanks!” Kevin shifted slightly, until he was looking at Carlos, grinning. “To Subject 0: We have your friend here, Carlos, in the station. He’s going to die pretty soon, but before that, we’re going to have some fun, alright? We were thinking all the methods this time. Except, of courseー” Kevin giggled. “ーmethod 10. He’s already got you for that one, right? Anyways, we just wanted to let you know…” Elise turned to Carlos and jabbed the device into him side, the shock making him cry out. “Oh look, Carlos says hi! Well then, have a nice evening Night Vale. Especially you, Subject 0.”

Carlos clenched his eyes shut against the pain, slightly grateful that the setting had been lowered enough for it to not knock him out like the last time. He bit out a laugh. “It won’t work.” Carlos promised, eyes trained on Kevin. He remembered the feeling of slowly suffocating, the tight grip on his waist. “He knows what I did. He won’t come for me.”

For a moment Kevin seemed as if he would retaliate, as if he would break that facade of happiness and delight and lash out in anger. But then the man brandished a wire net and stepped forward. “I hope he doesn’t.” Kevin said, and his smile seemed to perfectly reflect his bloodlust. “That would ruin all the fun.”

 

Carlos was glad this wasn’t an interrogation. He’d have broken by now. Instead, with no information to give up, all he had to do was scream, and writhe, and keep himself from begging. He’d allowed tears, and that was as much as he’d give them.

Another shock came unexpectedly, closer to the last one than usual, and Carlos curled uselessly into his body again, almost wishing he were still restrained. At least then his back would be protected.

A quiet plea broke through, his will crumbling. It rewarded him with five consecutive shocks.

The sound of Kevin’s laughter was abruptly interrupted by the sound of breaking glass, the window shattering, pieces spraying Carlos, nicking his arms and neck. When he cautiously uncurled Carlos could see that a particularly large piece had caught Kevin in the cheek.

Cecil stood in the studio like a glowing god, lighting up the room with power that was unearthly and strange. And yet, Carlos could only see how worn he seemed, how many bullet holes had torn through his arms. The old cut on his stomach had reopened and was soaking his bloody shirt with a brighter red.

 

Kevin could see the weakness as well. He smiled, tossing aside the shocking device for a silvery curved blade. It sliced at a projection that attempted to grab his waist, and then arced up for Cecil’s stomach, perhaps even his neck.

Carlos couldn’t tell exactly, in that moment. It didn’t matter. Kevin wasn’t allowed to cut the fabric of Cecil’s vest as far as he was concerned.

In retrospect, there had probably been better ways of stopping him than using himself as some human shield. Perhaps if Carlos had stood back and surveyed the situation like a scientist and not some _hero_ , he wouldn’t be lying on the carpet as he so often did, hands failing to stop the blood rushing out of his torso.

But then again, perhaps if Carlos had stood back and thought out a plan, Cecil would be dead before his thoughts could finish. And Carlos wasn’t willing to bet the odds.

The silvery knife, now dyed red in some places, lay close to Carlos’s head. It comforted him, in a way that very few things ever had. From it, he knew that Kevin was now unarmed. He knew that Cecil had gotten to him, easily now, and that he was safe. Safe at last. And free.

"I'm sorry," Carlos breathed, not sure if he was speaking to nothing but thin air. His eyesight was faltering already, and the pain made them blur further with tears. Hands were on him, suddenly.

"Carlos," Cecil's voice was like melting chocolate, even winded and tired as it was. It lulled Carlos further into the black; he was okay now. Cecil was here. "Carlos, don't you dare fall asleep."

"I'm sorry." Carlos repeated, apologizing both for before and because he was going to leave, very soon. "Cecil, please, please forgive me."

He didn't hear the response.

 

Cecil's voice flowed over him as Carlos awoke, but it sounded different somehow, more formal and in control, a steady cadence.

He felt the area where he'd been cut and found the rough texture of stitches, neatly sewed into his skin, like the stomach of a teddy bear.

To his right, Cecil was still speaking.

"—and goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight."

**Author's Note:**

> He's not dead I promise, there's going to be more.
> 
> Also, apologies, but this is actually a multi-chapter fic. For some reason, the website isn't letting me display the 1/? even when multiple chapters is selected for, so this is just a heads up.


End file.
